Tribunal approves Afgri‚ Senwes venture

Johannesburg - The Competition Tribunal on Friday approved with conditions the amalgamation of the retail assets of Afgri [JSE:AFR] and Senwes.

The two agricultural firms will form a 50-50 joint venture into which each will contribute their respective farming requisite retail stores.

These stores sell a range of key agriculture inputs such as fertiliser‚ animal feed‚ seed‚ fuel‚ vaccinations and crop protection to farmers.

The tribunal requested that a number of changes be made to the tendered conditions‚ including that all permanent‚ contract and temporary employees be bound to certain terms of the conditions‚ which were aimed at preventing the anti-competitive exchange of information between Afgri and Senwes.

The Competition Commission and the merging parties made the changes and the tribunal has now approved the deal with the amended conditions.

The tribunal‚ as part of several monitoring conditions‚ imposed a condition which requires reporting on an annual basis to the commission on compliance with the conditions.